MOST SCHOOLS IN INDIA don't teach about sex, let
alone AIDS, because they're considered taboo subjects. But that hasn't
stopped the development of more than seven million cases of HIV in the
country. Troubled by the statistics, Shilpa Rao, C'98, spent the
past summer volunteering as an AIDS educator in Bombay for VISIONS Worldwide,
a non-profit group run by college students from the United States. The
organization sends delegations of volunteers to conduct AIDS-awareness
workshops at schools, colleges, and community centers throughout the country
while also training Indian citizens to work as peer counselors.
"The biggest problem there is that most people
don't even know how it's transmitted or how they get it, let alone how
to protect themselves," Rao says. "We go in and talk about the
forms of transmission -- the biology -- but also the social issues that
are intertwined with it, such as discrimination." Some Indian doctors
and nurses, for instance, have refused to treat AIDS patients, she says.
Visiting hospitals while researching local health resources, her group
learned of one patient who had vomited on himself and didn't get his sheets
cleaned for a week because the staff was afraid of catching AIDS.
Rao was surprised at the strong resistance her group
encountered from some school authorities. "Before we could do a presentation
at a school, we had to go talk to the principal to get permission. Lots
of times the schools were like, 'No, no, no, we don't need this.' Even
some colleges would say, 'We understand that college students are having
sex, but ours aren't.'" When they were permitted to address a group,
they occasionally had to censor their presentations. "I've had teachers
stop us in the middle of [condom demonstrations], saying we can't do that."
Although Indian train stations may be covered with posters
warning about AIDS, awareness and education are often two different things,
Rao soon learned. One of the most common questions she was asked, for
instance, was whether the development of the impotence drug, Viagra, would
increase HIV cases. At first she was puzzled, but then when she considered
how little the students knew about AIDS, it made sense: "What they
know about it is one, that there is no cure for it, and two, you get it
from sex. They don't distinguish between protected sex and unprotected
sex, and they don't distinguish between lots of sex with one partner and
the fact that with multiple partners, there is an increased likelihood
... They think if you have sex at all, you're going to get HIV. That's
what's been drilled into their heads by their parents."
Rao, who majored in biological basis of behavior and
competed on Penn's gymnastics team, is taking time off this year to apply
to medical schools and work with local AIDS organizations. Next summer
she plans to return to India to lead a delegation of peer educators. Next profile | Previous profile
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